In motor vehicles with automated manual transmissions or automatic transmissions, even if an accelerator pedal is not actuated by the driver of the vehicle there is usually some transmission of a drive movement from a drive engine of the motor vehicle to the drive axle or axles of the motor vehicle, which results in forward crawling of the motor vehicle. To bring the motor vehicle to rest, the driver of the vehicle must actively actuate the service brake, but this causes the drive engine to work against the service brake and therefore also increases the fuel consumption.
To avoid higher fuel consumption, in motor vehicles it is known, by means of some particular function, to selectively separate a connection between the drive engine and the drive axle(s) of the motor vehicle and thereby to suppress the forward movement or crawling of the motor vehicle. The activation and deactivation of the function takes place in a manner that depends on the actuation of the service brake. While carrying out the function it is also known, when the connection is disconnected, to shift automatically to a pre-set starting gear of the motor vehicle's transmission, in which gear, when the function is later deactivated by releasing the brake pedal or when a brake pressure of the service brake falls, the motor vehicle can be started off by closing the connection between the drive engine and the drive axle(s). However, the motor vehicle can come to rest in situations in which starting off in the automatically pre-set starting gear is not advantageous. If the motor vehicle has stopped on an incline, the pre-set starting gear which would be favorable for starting off on level ground may be too high for starting off again on the incline. Too high a starting gear can have the result that due to the load, the drive rotational speed of the drive engine falls to a value at which the drive engine stalls. Due to the staffing of the drive engine, especially on an incline, the motor vehicle may find itself in an operating situation that is difficult to control. Moreover, if the motor vehicle is towing a trailer the aforesaid operating situation can become even worse.
WO 2006/119851 A1 discloses a method according to the preamble of the method claim, WO 2006/119851 describes a standstill shift of an automatic transmission by means of which a connection between the drive engine and the at least one drive axle of the motor vehicle is disconnected by means of a function, and a pre-set starting gear is chosen, wherein for the standstill shift to be activated a service brake of the motor vehicle has to be actuated. To avoid the possibility that starting in a pre-set gear should result in an operating situation that is difficult to control, the method according to WO 2006/119851 envisages that if certain boundary conditions exist, which would make the operation of the motor vehicle more difficult, such as starting off on an incline, then the standstill shift is rendered ineffective.